Saxon Cultural Area Act

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Basic data
Title: Law on the cultural areas in Saxony
Short title: Saxon Cultural Area Act
Abbreviation: SächsKRG
Type: State Law
Scope: Saxony
Legal matter: Cultural law
References : Fsn no. 70-4
Original version from: January 20, 1994
( Sächs GVBl. P. 175)
Entry into force on: August 1, 1994
New announcement from: August 18, 2008
(SächsGVBl. P. 539)
Last change by: Art. 15 G of December 15, 2010
(SächsGVBl. Pp. 387, 398)
Effective date of the
last change: 		January 1, 2011
(Art. 35 Paragraph 1 G of December 15, 2010)
Weblink: Text of the law
Please note the note on the applicable legal version.

The Saxon Cultural Areas Act (SächsKRG) regulates the financing of non-governmental cultural institutions in Saxony . It was passed in 1993 by the Saxon state parliament and came into force in August 1994. The current version is legally corrected from August 1, 2008. The Cultural Areas Act is based on recommendations of the Naumann Commission under the direction of Matthias Theodor Vogt . In 1992 this team of experts was commissioned to analyze the Saxon theater and orchestral landscape.

One problem in cultural policy is the unequal distribution of costs between the municipalities that maintain larger cultural institutions and the surrounding municipalities, whose citizens also use the institutions without co-financing them (so-called spillovers , also known as the concept of central locations ). In order to solve this problem as well as the problem of the numerically unequal distribution of cultural offers in urban and rural areas, a new approach in state cultural policy was attempted for an initial ten years with the Saxon Culture Areas Act. In November 2004, the coalition agreement between the CDU and the SPD stipulated that the law would initially be extended until 2011. This was done by law from November 7, 2007 to December 31, 2011. The district reform that came into force in Saxony on August 1, 2008 as a result of the District Reorganization Act also made it necessary to adapt the Cultural Areas Act. By law of June 20, 2008, the Saxon state parliament extended the cultural area law and provided it with an annual budget of at least EUR 86.7 million. With Article 15 of the Budget Accompanying Act 2011/2012, the Cultural Areas Act was last amended and the financing of the state theaters of Saxony , until then a free state task, was integrated into the Cultural Areas Act.

The main points of the Cultural Area Act are:

  • the division of Saxony into five rural (Vogtland-Zwickau, Ore Mountains-Central Saxony, Leipzig area, Meissen-Saxon Switzerland-Eastern Ore Mountains and Upper Lusatia-Lower Silesia) and three urban cultural areas ( Dresden , Chemnitz and Leipzig ). The rural cultural areas are organized as special purpose associations in accordance with the Saxon law on communal cooperation. (Up to August 1st, 2008, i.e. before the implementation of the District Reform Act in the Free State of Saxony, there were eight rural cultural areas: Vogtland, Zwickau, Ore Mountains, Central Saxony, Leipzig, Elbe Valley, Saxon Switzerland-Eastern Ore Mountains and Upper Lusatia-Lower Silesia). The urban cultural areas are identical to the three named independent cities.
  • the first anchoring of cultural maintenance as a municipal compulsory task with legal status
  • Joint financing of regionally important institutions and measures by the host community, the cultural area and the Free State of Saxony as part of a Saxon cultural burden compensation
  • a participatory participation of the professional public in the culture-political funding decisions via the cultural advisory boards of the cultural areas

So that not a few municipalities bear the main financial burden, cultural burden compensation is provided in the rural cultural areas in the form of a cultural levy, the amount of which each cultural area can determine itself. (In 2015, this averaged EUR 9.36 per inhabitant in rural cultural areas.) The municipal financial equalization is supplemented by grants from the state, which have totaled EUR 91.7 million annually since 2015. Of this, the cultural areas are allocated at least EUR 87.0 million annually in accordance with §§ 1 and 2 of the Saxon Cultural Area Ordinance, cf. Section 6 (2) letter a SächsKRG.

Cultural institutions and measures of all branches of regional importance are supported by the cultural areas, if they are in accordance with § 3 SächsKRG

a) a specific, historically based value for the self-image and tradition of the respective region or
b) special status for residents and visitors of the respective region or
c) Model character for operational forms of organization, especially in the case of the prerequisites for economical economic management, or
d) a special artistic-aesthetic or scientific innovative strength.

The sponsorship and legal form are irrelevant for the support. A prerequisite, however, is an appropriate participation of the host community, since the Cultural Areas Act works on the basis of complementary financing. The allocations from the state budget may not account for more than 30% of the expenditure of all institutions and measures funded by the cultural area.

Critics point to the question of the extent to which the special purpose association "Kulturraum" adversely affects the municipalities' right to shape themselves under Article 28 of the Basic Law and Article 82 of the Saxon Constitution. Proponents, on the other hand, emphasize that the cultural convention, the decisive organ of every rural cultural area, consists of delegated representatives from the respective municipalities and thus the right to self-development is preserved. On the contrary, the advantage of the cultural area lies in the fact that the grants are distributed by experts (via the advisory cultural councils of each cultural area) and not by outsiders.

Web links

literature

  • Kühn, Rocco (Ed.): Practical Guide to the Law on Cultural Areas in Saxony , 1st edition, Dresden, May 2011